The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [112]
Fleetingly I wondered how Weston would look in twenty years. He was so pretty he looked almost like a she-man, and such did not age well; at forty they resembled over-experienced courtesans whose best experiences were past. He had best marry quickly, and well. Even then I noticed how solicitous Anne was of him. It was one of those things one takes in without being aware of it—like whether a certain tree has lost its leaves.
Now Cranmer appeared before us, all stately in his glittering new robes of episcopal estate. He held up his hands and conferred a blessing upon us.
A priest walked up and down, shaking holy water upon us from a silver vessel. Behind him came two servers, their purple penitential robes gleaming, handing out willow branches to each “pilgrim."1em">Cranmer blessed them. “As men long ago welcomed Our Lord into Jerusalem by honouring Him with palms, let us do the same in our lives. Keep and use these humble branches to the glory of God, and to aid you upon your spiritual journey.”
Then he turned, slowly and gravely, and led us in measured steps into the Abbey, where he celebrated the Triumphal Procession into Jerusalem with a Mass so grand and so complete that no Papalist, no matter how ardent, could accuse us of leaning toward Lutheranism or abandoning the True Faith.
Spy Wednesday. The day, traditionally, when Judas spied on Jesus, asking him questions, prying to find out where he would be the next day—so he could inform Caiaphas and the others and earn his thirty pieces of silver. All that day, most likely, Judas was asking softly worded questions: “My Lord and my Master-with whom shall you share the Passover meal?” Then must he wait awhile before asking offhandedly, “And on what street is the house where we must gather before sundown?”
Spies. I hated spies. I could not imagine what a man must feel who spies. Nor a man who employs spies. It seemed to me that once a man began relying on spies, he put himself in their power. At first the information they feed him is true, but it is a bait to catch him, and then nothing is as it seems. I preferred to base my actions on what was obvious and could be seen with my own eyes.
Night was falling, and it was time to go to the Spy Wednesday Mass-the public chanting of Tenebrae. In the great Abbey, all candles would be extinguished one by one-to reenact Jesus’ abandonment by everyone, down to the last disciple.
The day itself had been one of gloom, and so the mood of despair and loss was already in the air. But it was intensified by the dirgelike chanting of the priests and the snuffing of all light in the great Abbey nave.
It felt like a tomb—all cold and dark and enclosed by stone. I tried hard to imagine the mind of Our Lord as He found Himself alone on the earth. There was an awesome period stretching between the fellowship of the Last Supper and the glory of the Resurrection; theologians called this time Satan’s Hour. It was a time when Christ experienced all human desolation, felt Himself to be abandoned by God.
I shivered in my cloak. How quickly they ran to abandon Him! How soon the Passover wine and candles and warmth faded away. Our attempts to keep Satan at bay are so weak and pitiful. He always runs us to ground and we must stand and face him-alone.
I looked around me, but saw nothing. I could hear coughs and body movements, but all the men about me were hidden from my sight, and separate one from the other.
This is how Satan rules—by separating us.
But nothing can separate us from the love of God, Saint Paul says.
Nothing save despair.
Despair, then, is Satan’s handmaiden.
Holy Thursday. Following the Last Supper, Christ washed the feet of the disciples, saying, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.” Now, as Kings of England had done time out of mind before me, I must wash the feet of beggars-as many beggars as I am yloning around them in wonder.